The point isn't whether or not public transport is available, but how much it costs.
Public transport in London isn't that much more affordable - if at all - than a car is here.
In my case it was about 100 pounds a month per adult. How much do you spend in your car, depreciation, petrol and maintenance included? In London it is a lot cheaper than 100 pounds per adult per month to live in area 3 than in area 1, so given the choice it makes sense to commute. By laying out pros and cons we risk inducing people to join the debate, and losing control of a process that only we fully understand. - Alan Greenspan
Balance that against the extra time required to get in and out of work, which may involve juggling a school run, etc.
If you're in a low-paid job earning around £1k/month after tax, you don't get the choice to decide whether or not to afford it - because clearly, you can't.
Obviously if you can walk to work you're going to do that, because it's going to save you some significant cash.
And conversely if you can't walk to work, certain jobs become unaffordable if you're forced to pay commuting costs.
What these graphs show is that there wasn't much choice in the arbitration - it's simply impossible in France to spend more that a third of income on rent : you won't get a rent or a loan for more than that. Thus, those that have less purchasing power have to move farther away, to cheaper neighbourhoods, and thus spend more of their income, both in relative and absolute, on the housing and transportation budget. And it's not going to get better... Transport fares in Paris are much more expensive the farther you are from the city centre ; and, also quite importantly, whereas Paris intra-muros, the old city, has very good public transportation, it very quickly gets worse the farther one lives from the city centre.
What these graphs show is that there wasn't much choice in the arbitration - it's simply impossible in France to spend more that a third of income on rent : you won't get a rent or a loan for more than that.
Thus, those that have less purchasing power have to move farther away, to cheaper neighbourhoods, and thus spend more of their income, both in relative and absolute, on the housing and transportation budget. And it's not going to get better... Transport fares in Paris are much more expensive the farther you are from the city centre ; and, also quite importantly, whereas Paris intra-muros, the old city, has very good public transportation, it very quickly gets worse the farther one lives from the city centre.
